


Skyline

by JestaAriadne (still_intrepid)



Category: Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber
Genre: Angst, F/M, POV First Person, Serious Injuries, Some Humor, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-02-17
Updated: 2003-02-17
Packaged: 2019-05-20 23:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14904507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_intrepid/pseuds/JestaAriadne
Summary: Rumpelteazer tries to come to terms with her suddenly shattered life.[Posted here in 2018 as part of my getting around to archiving my catsfic on ao3.]





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written kind of at the height of my CATS fandom, over the winter of 2002-2003, with much love and support from my friends and fandom comrades. My first person POV magnum opus up til that point :) I apologise if the written accents grate on people's nerves... it was just what we used to do!
> 
> It also, I should acknowledge, owes much in terms of overall plot inspiration to Guardian1's FFVII fanfic 'Sunshine in Winter'.. (inasmuch as the plot is: "main character gets injured; life in jeopardy; supportive relationship with significant other" which I know isn't unique, but that fic had a huge influence on my life anyway and you should probably read it too.

Beginnings are never great places to start things, in my humble opinion. That could be cos I'm so rubbish at them myself. Once I get started I'm fine; I'm off, I'm crazy like a firework and you can't stop me yakking away, but intros and all that have never been my strong point. Besides, take the very beginning of the story of My Wonderful Life, and you'd have something like this:

"Sometime in some place, probably London, but you never know, there was a cat called well, we don't know her name, but there she was. At some point, she went and fell in love with (or maybe she didn't) a tom who's name is just another factor x. They had a kitten (or maybe more than one) and it was a little (presumably), cute (well, maybe) queen (at least we're sure on this one). They might have called her Rumpelteazer, but more likely the little thing just picked that up from somewhere later. And so there I was; all small and noisy and being sick probably and all those other kitten things. And then, hey presto, the parents disappeared. Or died, or something. I don't know."

Well, that's enougha that. There you have it. Now you know why stories start with "Once upon a time".

~~~

So, not the very beginning then. The beginning doesn't make sense, and isn't worth the telling, but I muddled through it. I made it. I laughed my way in and out of the gutter, or we did. Me'n Mungo. Me darlin' Mungojerrie. My other half. My second self. My soulmate? The other pea-in-the-pod. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Didn't I tell ya? Can't stop me now... Birds of a feather. Cats of a fur?? Yeahhmmmm.

The "cocky cockneys" as the junkyard's resident wit Mistoffelees calls us. Yeah, it was funny the _first time_ , Mist. Heh, I don't mind really. I can call him much worse if I feel like it. 'Sides, he messes with me too much and he's gonna lose that sparkly collar of his. That pretty, sparkly, shiny collar...

Er, anyway, back to whatever point I had... Me'n Mungo. That seems like a decent enough place to start from. No, he's not my brother, or my twin, or my clone (only male and bigger and kinda cooler.) No, we're not the same, we only pretend to be. Sometimes. It's nice. Makes me feel safe.

I don't know if we "fell in love" right away or what. Maybe we just desperately needed each other. Cat, what am I talking about "maybe"?? "Other half" describes it just about right, especially when... well, then I'd swear he was my whole, doing everything, even living, for me.

So let's take a couple months back... that's all it was, I guess. There was I; the cuter, hyperer half of the extremely notorious duo, happily flaunting fake pearls or whatever the latest shiny thing I found was, champion sprinter of the whole junkyard, and happy happy happy.

And, of course, that's about when it happened. Of course, of course, of course. So I've got my pretty-much-perfect life, (albeit with all those jaded kittenhood non-memories and the half-forgotton struggle to get here) but doesn't that just leave you screaming "AND NOW WHAT??"? It seems no one can get away clean in this life.

So. To set the scene. Early autumn in London. Well, it was probably early autumn everywhere in England, but that's beside the point. We'd been residing comfortably in Victoria Grove for almost a year now, and wow was it strange to think of it like that. I was a house cat now, technically. A house cat, but not really a _house cat._ The phrase comes with all sorts of connotations of daily cream allowances and silken cushions and little name-tags round your neck, probably with a fancy flouncy name like Esmereldina calligraphed on it... Or is that just the way I've been brought up? Ha. "Brought up." That's the streets for you then. My mother, father, great uncle Juniper, what have you - never had no real relations that I knew of, remember? Just those damned dirty dangerous places where everything is threatening grey. So moving up in the world into this luvverly big shiny house, I didn't exactly know what to expect.

But I was used it now. And it almost was like the urban legends - _sans_ silk cushion and name-tag, true, but it was a very comfortable existence. But we never quite let ourselves settle into it, not 100%. I always felt I had to preserve something of that spunky crazy kit who survived streetlife for however long it was.

Mungo and I still held our infamous heists now and again - although the bounty was getting piteously tame most of the time. It was a nice little hobby. It was _fun_. And we still raced each other back home, every single time (got to burn off the calories from that daily cream allowance somehow, you know!) - and I still always won.

So here we go.

"Race ya!" I yelled, like it was a new and fantastic idea.

"Yer on! An' Oi'm gonna _win_ this time!!"

It was very sweet of him... he actually genuinely had that tiny bit of hope that he really _might._

_Hehe. Not a chance, me Mungo!_

Down the straight road from the park - easy as pie (lemon meringue for preference... mmmmm...) - take the corner just right - corners always used to be the tricky part for me, I'd go flying off sideways and have to nearly stop to recover my balance, but I'd got it perfect now. And down a nice straight pavement again. I could still just hear Mungo's panting behind me, a good half of the street's length or so - I'd have lost him by the crossing. Sprinting on. This was something I was _good_ at. A nice crazy run, wind full in my face and fur and pearls flying everywhere; this was how it was meant to be.

And I'd arrived at the crossing. Maybe I'd stop and wait a coupla seconds (or minutes...hehe...) for dear ol' Mungo to catch me up once I was on the other side...?

Except that I never got to make that choice.

Because halfway across, a car hit me. I was stupid, yes, not to have noticed it, but it's just not something you worry about when you're going for your personal record to the traffic lights... I certainly wasn't thinking about it as I went flying towards the curb.

I suppose the driver stopped, because someone rushed over to me as I was lying there pathetically, screaming my head off. I just thought, pointlessly: _This is it, isn't it?_

Childishly: _It's not fair._

And, coherently: _If I die now, I am seriously gonna kill someone._

Yeah. Not very funny really, was it? Something of a last-ditch attempt, I think.

My side - my back - my legs... I was burning up. I thought I was on fire and there were crimson nuances running through my head. I was going to die? It didn't make much sense somehow, and though I always had acted on impulse without planning anything, this just didn't fit in with... - I was burning. My head was on fire with - well, it was just pain, wasn't it? I was just dying. _Mungo, where are you?_

I blacked out. Well, they call it "blacked out", but for me it was more like a smashed kaleidoscope of sun spots and blind spots and crazy colours. Like fireworks going off in my head before I faded to dear kind grey.


	2. Relative Minor

And I opened my eyes.

One of them, at any rate. The other wasn't too keen to comply. I remember being totally thrown by this, like it was suddenly the most important thing in the world. Which was odd, in retrospect, because you'd really have thought I'd've noticed the soaring pain down my side first. I didn't, not straight away.

But then it hit me and I yowled and yelled and screamed my aching head off like it would do some good.

Heaviside, _why_ did I have to wake up? What was wrong with the grey and the peace and the - the so comfortable _end_ \- why couldn't I have just been left at that? There were then huge human faces blotting out my light above me, shouting slow and strange and muddled things that might have made sense at some other time: "Coming round /give her /careful /take it easy girl /alright now /easy?"

Where was I?

White - very clean - lying against something harder than it should have been, like a table - and just _screaming_ in pain - I couldn't see much properly - _why_ couldn't I see?

My paws went flailing at my face, trying to claw away the thick and sickly veil over my eye - nothing was clear - it should have hurt more, I think. I probably almost clawed my own eyes out. It was panic, and literally blind, and I was just trying to see, finding the crazy and crimson fog swallowing me whole...

Then there were suddenly human shouts and human hands holding me down. I struggled, scratched them, scared that they should be so desperately protecting me from myself.

I wasn't going to stop. I wasn't going to stop until I'd scarred their faces and hands and thrown myself to the floor and screamed and screamed and torn myself into a million pieces. But I felt my muscles relax almost before I felt the clean prick of pain in my leg, and proper blackness swirled into me.

~~~

I woke up back at home. Still muzzy.

Something smelt wrong. I felt funny. A lot of me was vaguely tingly, almost intoxicatingly gentle points of feeling down my back.

Had time to observe the carpet was wet and messed up like someone had been scrubbing it clean. Giggled softly at that and at the funny sort of pain, then fell out of the world again.

~~~

The vague feeling in my head was playing gentle havoc with my sense of time too. I'd awake and see sunlight, might not even notice it properly, and have no idea whether it had been an hour or a day or five since I'd last felt the warm. Things fell into the wrong place in little blurry snapshots of the couple minutes I could manage at a time.

I must really have been out of it, because Mungojerrie was just a furry outline against my dreams of waking.

I was gleaning the details of my surroundings so slowly it really frustrated me when I managed to think about it. They'd put me in the good old laundry basket, stored neatly underneath the "occasional table" (stupid name) in the living room. Eating, and attending to "nature's call" (the every day, icky, boring one; don't get excited) caused slight problems. There was my bowl of food, to one side, no problem to reach except that it felt like my spine was melting each time I tried, and actual eating wasn't great. Kitty litter was inconsiderately against the wall some distance away, which was quite an effort to get to when I needed to go. Lotsa blankets for me, though sometimes I wondered if they made any difference. I've never been exactly easy to please, but my temperature was just going crazy. For a while I seemed to be soaring from the north pole to the equator, burning up then freezing into a little quaking icicle.

Mungo was like an anxious guardian angel, always hovering around, though no angel was ever so ill-used and irritated... I think the first words I remember saying were a complaint.

~~~

"Oi'm freezin'..." I moaned.

Mungo put a paw on my shivering back. _Don' do that, Mungo..._ I thought, _You'll probably catch something offa me and die..._ "They saiy you gotta fever," he told me.

"Wot the hell 'ave Oi gotta fever for?" I croaked. I don't often swear, you know. When I do, you can be sure that I'm either really, really not happy or just not thinking quite straight. In that instance, I think you could take your pick.

"Sumfin abou'... the drugs they're givin' ya. T'stop you 'urting. Yer body moight not be loikin' 'em."

"Stop me 'urting, eh? Go an' tell 'em it ain't workin..." It struck me soon after that I shouldn't have said that. The pain in his face was more than I could take.

I drifted away again.

~~~

Hardly surprisingly, it was only when I was awake and aware that I would realise how much time I must have been spending asleep or otherwise subdued. I felt like I was missing an awful lot. The human kid came and talked to me a couple of times, petting my fur very carefully, but I couldn't make much sense of whatever it was she was saying between all the "poor kitty"s and "love you"s.

The older humans - that visitor, the _vet_ predominantly - had supplied a few useful words for my considerations in the very brief moments of waking. _Concussion. Internal bleeding._

At that point, I was perfectly happy - no, _resigned_ is more like it - to simply pout back up at them, not that they understood: "So my body's messed up? Fix it, then!"

After all, if the humans had control over the whole of my life now, it only stood to reason that they were the ones who'd have to come up with some way of piecing it back together again.

~~~

Spasms of consciousness were getting more frequent with the brief bursts of feeling and memory, and with the even-more-pain. It wasn't so bad as long as I lay perfectly still, but - me? Lie still? I felt that this was quite possibly the cruellest, meanest thing anyone could do to me. I just hated the inability to do _anything_ for myself, and it was gradually coming to me that I'd never really had much of a say in my own life. "Has she had a tetanus jab?" I heard the vet say once. No idea on that one mister, I'd thought. I'm sure I would've had I had the choice, but no one ever told me about 'em, or let me potter down the surgery and ask for vaccinations against whatever weirdy diseases I might pick up after living rough for years, or on the off-chance some idiot in a car decided to hit me.

I hadn't really even thought much about whoever the guy was in the car that hit me. I suppose it's hardly surprising that my memory of that moment isn't exactly crystal clear. I knew it was a man wearing a red tie - I remembered, because his car was red aswell. Weird, huh? I considered, vaguely, pinning all the blame on him, which I'm pretty sure it what I'd have done a year or so ago. It was what you had to do, to get by. Or at least that's what I'd thought. Hate and hate alike. Great motto. I - well, I _hated_ the idea, and I tried to laugh it off, or just keep out of the way. Still, I _did_ survive, and it was only when I was letting my guard down a bit that this went and _happened_ to me. Was this a punishment? For all those carefree months? For those stolen pearls? My fault? Anyone's?

It seemed too much effort to go blaming anyone. With that thought, I should have known I was doomed. I should have had boundless energy. I should have _been_ boundless energy. I was life and crazy laughter and brilliant light-shows incarnate, and now I'd been reduced to this: immobile and dull-coated supplicant, only going crazy in the privacy of my own head. Perhaps the single worst thing....

Like electricity, and someone had pulled the plug.

It also occurred that I was increasingly lost without Mungojerrie. In my dreams I sometimes thought I heard him scratching against the door of the room, and I told him not to bother, that the humans weren't gonna change their minds anyway. They kept us apart for hours and hours now, in the gentlest way possible; all soft strokes and kind words and explanations that made no sense. They had their reasons I'm sure, but no one ever told me.

And now I was awake enough to mind about it. Maybe I wasn't going to be bothered to go as far as _blame_ , but _impatience_ was coming back to me with a vengeance.

~~~

I thought I heard something about "Thursday". That meant, I guessed, that it had taken me three days since _that_ day to notice my pearls were missing.

And for some reason, that thought just stuck in my head, all day. All while I waited for Mungo, it was "My pearls - where've they gone?" Should have known I was a purely materialistic girl. Shallow, you know? It upset me, in the petty, pretty sort of way all airheads must get upset.

I continued an inspection of my body. Eyes: OK, good enough to see the rest of me. Face: No idea. Didn't feel too bad, actually. Paws: so-so, scratched and bashed up, but alright. No good without the co operation of my back, which was pretty much a complete no-show. There had to be a stronger word than ache. My back _screeched_ when I tried to move it. And half my teeth were broken or knocked out. I had been eating instinctively; the weird sloppy stuff I was given, so at least I didn't have to bother chewing much, which would really have been annoying.

Again, it was the little things that bothered me.

"Mungo!" I yelled at him as soon as he came in. My voice, that was another thing. All wrong. Clogged up and ragged round the edges. Ugh.

"'Ey, Teaza," He was having more and more difficulty with that easy smile, I noted.

He loped over the carpet towards me. I wobbled up onto my feet for a few seconds, thought 'Why bother?' and flopped down again. I imagined jumping up to meet him.

"'Ow you've been?" he asked, casually, setting himself down next to me.

"Bleaeeeeech." I made a face. "Not bad."

"Eh, that's... good." He scratched an ear.

To put him out of his misery - he never was the best conversationalist - I said: "Where've me pearls gone?"

"....Tha's a point," he said, usefully. "Oi - um, Oi dunno, acsh'lly. Oi suppose... mebbe they put 'em somewhere after ya -"

"Yeah," I said quickly. Not for my sake, well, at least not entirely. He was suddenly looking so entirely miserable. I imagined giving him a hug. He could do with one.

He scratched his ear again. It was like he'd developed a major case of fleas there or something.

It was so stupid - there were a million things for us to talk about; that was what was always so cool about us, about him - or at least, that was one of the things. He'd listen to my crazy ramblings about whatever and laugh and look at me in that weird wondering way, but never long enough to let me feel uncomfortable, and then he'd come up with some equally wild wonderful idea and we'd always have such a laugh.... He was like my sounding board, and I was always all the better and all the more _me_ for having him around.

And... Heaviside, here we were now, staring at nothing, scuffing the carpet, and not even speaking. If this was what I could expect from consciousness, maybe I'd rather have gone back to drifting, ta very much.

I cleared my throat noisily, which turned out to be a very bad move. I couldn't stop coughing.

I could feel my lungs crunching into a tight little ball.

Mungo whacked me inexpertly on the back.

I stopped coughing.

"Are you OK?" he asked, sounding genuinely panicked.

I nodded, not sure about my voice yet.

"Sure?"

"Yeah, Oi'm jus' _peachy_ , thanks!" I spluttered.

"...OK," he said meekly.

"Nah, sorry..." I managed. "Oi'm OK. Oi prolly jus' gotta cold or sumfin."

"Ya 'ave?" Voice too sharp.

I reacted almost instinctively. "Yuh-huh... And that's.....bad?" Flippantly, harsher humour. Scared him or something, I think.

"No... Well - yeah... Oi dunno!" I was still looking at him sideways, which puts an interesting slant on a desperate and somewhat scared expression. "Teaz - Oi don' get it! The 'umans are sayin' all this stuff 'bout ya... 'bout yer _immune system_ , wotever tha' is, an' _Oi don' understand!"_ His eyes were worse than his voice this time.

I started to imagine giving him another big hug, but my mouth had shot itself off before I finished. "Wot's there to understand?" I fired back at him. "Oi'm _sick_ is all!" I was yelling. I was yelling at him. "Oi'm _sick_ all over an' -" I giggled, half on the edge of my own hearing. "Hhhhhhhheehhhhhhh!!!" I rasped. "See? See? 'Ear me breathe!"

Rasping, wheezing, catapulted into another coughing fit, I giggled and giggled even though I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe I couldn't move and -

"B-b-loody funny?" I asked scornfully, even though it was my own giggles that were bursting out of my taut lungs. I didn't know if he replied; I'd almost lost track of my own words. My heart was skittering, beating too fast, I was on the edge- "Ya - th-think it's bloody _funny_??"

"-Stop it!!"

I stopped. I opened my eyes. His tears were falling onto my face until he blinked and looked away.

Hysterical. I had only been and gone _hysterical._ I was gasping for breath, as quietly as I could now. What - what happened?

"'m sorry. Oi'm sorry... sorry... an...'" And I found I had nothing else to say.


	3. Scherzo

It was OK the next day. Simple as that. Strange, but things do tend to boil down to their simplicities when you haven't got any choice.

We'd come to a sort of mutual understanding, I think, that... these things happened. It sounded like such a "grown-up", Jennyanydots-style platitude and made me want to be sick, but I tried to ignore that. I was having enough trouble with all the other things that kept making me be sick.

It hadn't taken the humans much of scrubbing the mess I made off the carpet before they tried the sensible tack and put my kitty litter practically right next to my bed. Which, I'll admit, was useful - in more than one way, although I didn't usually have much to excrete in the usual way, it was so _not_ worth the effort of standing up and going to the other side of the room - but it was hardly pleasant. They didn't clean it out anywhere near as often as I'd've liked and the smells merged with the smells of medicine and sterilised dressings until it made me dizzy just to breathe sometimes.

But we weren't going to let these things get to us or spoil anything. I wasn't going to let me get me down. I hated even the memory of that morbid, pathetic loss of control and I was never, ever going to let it happen again. Genuine cheerfulness and optimism was the way to go. After all, it had always worked for me before, after a fashion.

Mungojerrie ...borrowed... me a new pearl necklace to replace my old one. (The girl human was going through some sort of phase.... she had about a hundred plastic bits of jewellery which she left lying around in careless places like sideboards and desks and locked boxes and things...) And a ruby necklace (fake, but still sparkly). And a sapphire one. And two more pearl ones.

Eh, of course the humans noticed the rapidly growing pile of jewels around my bed, but then I gave them The Endearing Look, perfected from months of begging food of humans in parks and they went "Awwwwww!!!" and patted me and went away saying things about the Darling Traits of the Dear Little Thing... or something.

...And a couple gold chains, and I'm pretty sure those were real, or at least pretty-high-carat plated, and .... am I getting carried away?

And Jemima and Pouncival bouncing up the stairs.

Wide-eyed and grinning and bouncing with - OOOooooh, it was _chocolate_ , they had a packet of chocolate creams each!!! Bounce, bounce, across the room... It was a most accomplished bounce, really. It was bouncing to rival _my_ bouncing. It made me want to bounce too, and I obviously hadn't become completely bone-tired or world-weary or _sensible_ or any of that rubbish, because I actually tried.

Bounce / Splat, was basically how it went. What comes up must come down, they say, but I'd kinda been hoping my legs would disprove that for at least _two seconds_. Come on, isn't that fair? Up / Down, and then I was lying uncomfortably on top of one of my legs - the one in a plaster cast - , and I'd completely spoiled everything.

Jemima dropped the chocolate creams and gracefully leapt the remaining distance.

"Are you alright?" she asked, concern just spilling out of her eyes.

"Mm-hm." I nodded industriously, kicking my other feet against the bottom of the basket until I was sort of sitting up.

Pouncival landed to the left of Jemima, now carrying both packets of chocolates.

"Hi!" he said perkily, nervously. Something told me it had been Jem's idea to Visit The Poor And Injured. He looked altogether well-meaning but confused.

Then happened one of those awkward silences you hear so much about. You tend to notice just how many other things there are to do rather than saying anything in those moments; Jemima examined her paw and removed something invisible, Pouncival took his time rubbing his nose. Mungojerrie, predictably, scratched an ear. They all avoided looking at me, so I took great interest in watching them. Of course, at the same time a few seconds lasts about an hour and half and you can just imagine pins dropping noisily everywhere. Or needles, thumbtacks, whatever.

"So are you gonna give me chocolates or what?" I said at last. That was good. Good thing to say, to let them know that it was still me underneath the bandage and the funny tatty fur and cracked voice.

Pouncival looked like he was about to say something when Jemima spoke up.

"Oh no," she said seriously, "They're for Mungojerrie. Tokens of my love, you know."

Mungojerrie looked worried.

I glared. It took her less than five seconds under full Teazer-glare-power to start laughing. Then again, it only took _me_ a couple seconds longer. Making sure Mungo couldn't hear, I giggle-growled: "Keep yer paws offa my tom!"

I imagined jumping at her and rolling around the floor in a play fight for a minute - it's what I would have done, ordinarily, until.. a week? two? three? ago. _Sigh._ Being an invalid sucked.

"Here you go." Pouncival pushed the chocolates my way.

And as I stared at them zooming across the carpet, the implication suddenly hit me with the force of... something forceful. CHOCOLATE!!

"Eeeeee!!" I squealed, hyperventilating pleasantly as my claws closed around the first box.

I think I worked myself into some sort of chocolate-frenzy as I tore open the packets - _everyone_ offered to do it for me, but I refused violently. This was probably something like an ancient hunting ritual - you corner the prey, you pounce, and you tear it to shreds. _Right, chocolate creams, yer gonna get it!!!_

And... oh wow oh WOW, it was like food of the gods that they'd given to _me_! Not cos the gods didn't want it, but maybe they just hadn't known it was gone when someone pinched it from their banqueting hall. Like Prometheus, only with _chocolate_!! Can you imagine that? _Pouncival Steals Chocolate From the Chocolate-Place_ they'd call it. An epic tale of a quest to bring the sweet substance to mortals. Wonderful chocolate. Magical chocolate. _Celestial_ chocolate, I worship you now!!

I wasn't thinking tremendously clearly, I'll admit, but things were going blurry in a _good_ way this time.

I hadn't had chocolate in _so long._ I hadn't had anything other than that slime food in what felt like years. The probability that I was going to be sick later on certainly did cross my mind. It would be a real shame, a waste of both the valuable chocolate creams _and_ of the carpet which was... well, rapidly decreasing in value, the way things were shaping up. The thought _did_ cross my mind, but then I sent it off to cross a major road. Ha ha.

When I'd eaten the first packet, I slowed down a bit and let the others have some of the second and we daintily picked out the interesting shaped ones and had fun guessing what they would taste like.

I probably ate one with rum in it or something, because I felt impossibly happy; or maybe it was just the effect of the chocolate in general. And Jem and Pounce and Mungo and all of us eating chocolate by the stinking kitty litter and pretty much forgetting that I'd nearly died however long ago it was and swapping crazy stories and admiring my jewellery collection... Mungo and I were probably instilling some pretty... dubious, I think Jennyanydots would say,... ideas in these two young minds; they both were absolutely enthralled by all our exploits that were just on the shady side of 'borrowing'.

We talked and whatever all afternoon, then Jem and Pounce left. I wasn't sick. I was probably too tired to be. It just felt like the most fantastic day of my life _ever_ , and I still felt high on chocolates as my eyelids drooped and I settled down _comfortably_ , somehow, for bed.

"Ya look loike a royal princess with all this 'bout," Mungo said as I pawed through the necklaces, watching them sparkle in the lamplight like hypnotists' toys.

"A queen," I said, grinning widely and sleepily.

"Yeah, a roight royal queen with 'er crown jewels an' sweetmeats at a banquet an' all..."

"Do queens eat chocolate?"

"Oi dunno... But yer the queen, ain't ya? Wot you say goes."

"Oooooh, the POWER!!" I turned the tickling cough into an evil Muahaha-Macavity-laugh - a rather good one if I say so myself.

"An' we can all be yer loyal subjects."

"Yeah," I said happily, my mind running away with the fantasy. "An' you all 'ave to bring me jewels an' chocolate an' tha', an' bow down afore me... An' you all 'ave t'wear those silly things round yer necks.. y'know the things Oi mean?"

"Er... collars?" he hazarded.

"Nah... loike... all fancy an' tha'."

"Necklaces?"

"Nonono, only _Oi_ getta wear necklaces. They're... whoite, Oi think.. and loike, frilly."

"Lampshades??"

"Nooo!! They're in the 'uman pics with the old queen Eliz'beth or wotever..."

"Ruffs?"

"Yeah, tha's the one." I grinned evilly.

"We gotta wear ruffs?" he exclaimed in elaborated shock.

"Yuh-huh."

"Really...?"

"Yup. Queen's orders." _Giggle._ The POWER!

"...Do we _'ave_ to...?"

I considered. "Hmmmm... since yer beggin' so noicely, Oi suppose Oi'll let ya get away with it." I looked around the room. "'Sides, we'd 'ave a job foindin' any 'round 'ere..."

"But ya still get the jewels an' chocolate an' tha'."

"Yeah...."

A human walked into the room.

I scowled at it, then shrugged. Mungo rubbed my nose with his and I giggled.

"Night, Mungo," I said as the human picked him up to carry him downstairs.

"Yeah, night-night, Teaz. See ya in the mornin'."

I burrowed comfortably into the blankets and had a dream about sailing through the air in my bed which was stuck on a giant square of chocolate. Nice.

~~~

Three days later. I was _sure_ this time. I'd been able to keep count. Absobloominglutely fantastico!!

I couldn't keep much food down yet, but I was kinda getting used to being sick and I even hit the kitty litter a good bit of the time. Still, it was NOT NICE, which really goes without saying so I'm not sure why I said it, other than I just love stating the obvious. Other such obvious points include the fact that I was totally, _totally_ fed up of that laundry basket. Oops, sorry, royal throne. Bet most queens' thrones don't stink like this one did... And I bet they get to leave the throne room once in a while, unlike me.

Heaviside, I wanted to _run_ again!

Fur flying, a new string of pearls jumping jovially around my neck and my body soaring through air - this was the stuff of my dreams. I'd be looking over at sky through the window, bathing in the strips of sunlight across the carpet, impatience niggling at every cell, just hoping the world out there would wait for me to come back to it. I lived on Pounce and Jem's stories, closing my eyes and trying to float on the sunbeams. Early Autumn. Oh, I didn't want to miss that season... Summer was great, and winter had its charms as long as you could stay inside, but Autumn with the golden leaves and harvest hymns and everything... it was my time.

I wanted it to hold out for me. Patience had always been missing from otherwise-absolutely-complete set of virtues. _Hang in there, everyone... Teazer's gettin' back on her feet..._

But, for now... I was High Queen Teazer, and I would not only survive, but I would Ruuuule the Wooooooooooooorld!!!! Or something like that. There was definitely a time of fever-dreaming when that seemed like a very good idea indeed, but I'd gone off it a little since then. Far to Macavity-esque for me. Empress of the Living Room was the limit of my ambition at this current moment.

Well, actually, I did have another plan, too....

~~~

Mungojerrie blew a triumphal pretend fanfare.

"Preeesenting.... 'Is Lordship Pouncival...."

(I'd accepted a couple select kittens as official members of my royal court.)

"....von Wonderbar, Master of the 'Oly Rocking Chair!"

(but the titles had been _completely_ their own ideas... I had _nothing to do_ with them. _Nothing!!!!_ )

"Lady Jemima del Sol, an' Lady Victoria de la Lune!"

(I was thinking that maybe Jennyanydots had instilled in them a shaky grasp of a few European languages. _Very_ shaky in Pouncival's case.)

"An' where's Sir Plato de wotever-it-was-"

Victoria chimed in immediately. "Plato de Poulet!"

 _Nothing_ to do with me!!!!!

" - of... er... y'know, tha' place...?"

"Falcon's Reach!" Victoria again. Everyone stared at her. "What??" she asked. Saw where _that_ was coming from, right?

"Yeah, 'im. Anyway, where is 'e?" I asked, staring around like he was gonna pop up any minute.

"Gone to the vet's," Victoria pouted. "Flea check or something."

Icky icky icky. Flea check or heart surgery, I wouldn't wish anyone _anything_ to do with any stupid vet. Despite the fact that one had probably kept me alive, I resented the fact that I hadn't been informed while it was happening and that the man was so ANNOYING. "Eugh," I said. "Give him my best an' all, poor guy."

"Yeah, I will."

I giggled. "...D'ya miss 'im?" I asked, really tactfully. Dropping hints from a height of fifty feet, I was.

Pouncival grinned. "Probably. Don't you, Vic?" He turned to me. "But it's a bit pointless hinting like that, Teaz. They've officially been an item since sometime last week."

Victoria nodded, smiling nervously.

"Oh, right." I saw I'd been out of touch with everyone. Just shows what a matter of days can do to your corner of the world... Never mind. A couple weeks. I could deal with that. Still, might as well catch up on the gossip. "So..." I asked, doing my best Bustopher-voice-impression, the closest I'd got to royalty. "Wot's the news with my loh-wly subjects dah-own at the junkyaaahrd? Has anyth-aaang interestaang -" _Oh screw this!_ "Wha's the gossip? Wha've Oi missed?"

Actually, it turned out to be not much. Well, not much I would have paid attention to or cared about, at any rate. Apparently, Victoria had been enlisted to teach Jennyanydots' mice ballet. Not a great success, by all accounts. Apparently, Jellylorum was seen flirting with Skimbleshanks. Apparently, Alonzo was seen flirting with Cassandra, Demeter and Bombalurina. Apparently, Tugger was seen flirting with Cassandra, Demeter, Bombalurina, Electra, Exotica, Mistoffelees, Jennyanydots, Plato ("Was _not!!!_ " shouted an outraged Victoria...), Etcetera, Tantomile and.... Rumpelteazer.

"Huh? But Oi 'aven't been aroun' fer ages!?"

"That's why I said 'apparently'," said Jemima.

"Ah..."

"So, how've things been around here, Teaz?" Pouncival asked. He had certainly relaxed around me since his first visit. He also seemed kinda older and more mature than I remembered. Then again, I probably wasn't remembering a whole lot. It was getting to me more and more that I hadn't really bothered to get to know him, or Jemima, or Victoria, or anyone from the junkyard really. And they'd still come to visit me - not just the once out of cheap courtesy or anything either. I thought/hoped that I'd've done the same for them. Well, I knew I would now, but perhaps it was a good thing I'd never had the need to before.

"Well, y'know." I said weakly. "Alroight."

"How's the royal court?" asked Jem, gently; keeping the talk flowing well enough. "Need any more jewels or anything?"

Oooh dear, the look on her face! Eyes shining and all that - wot have we done to these innocent young kits? Hehe.

"Well.... there's _always_ room for more shoiny things," I said, thus stating a great truth of my existence. Sparkle-powered, that's me.

"We'll get some!" they all said at once.

"Wot, all o' you?" asked Mungojerrie.

"Yeah!"

"No no no!" I said, flapping my paws about uselessly. Then I tried to come up with a reason. "It's....er... three'd be too many. Victoria, you staiy 'ere, an' you can.... um..." - _cough-_ "talk t'me 'bout tha' pearly collar. Pounce an' Jem, i's the girl's room - firs' one on the left, can't miss it."

Shrugging, Pouncival and Jemima dashed off.

Mungojerrie looked sidelong at me. "Wot was tha' all abou'?" he asked.

"Nothin', nothin'," I said happily.

"You're playing matchmaker with Jem and Pounce, aren't you!" accused Victoria, grinning.

"Er.... maybe...?" I offered. "Ya don' mind, do ya?

"No, not at all... Only I've been trying for months and they just _won't_ take a hint!!"

Mungojerrie chuckled. "Oi'm thikin' they'll taike Teaza's 'ints," he said. "They're koinda 'ard t'miss..."

"Besoides," I said, with an air of finality and firmness that would have worked much better if my voice didn't crack halfway through the word. I wasn't going to let that bother me. "Oi am 'Er Royal 'Ighness Queen Rumpelteaza and _everyone_ 'as t'do wot I want!" I shifted in my mess of blankets, warm and comfortable. "Oooooh!!" I squealed, seeing absolutely no reason not to use my hyperness to the full. "They are SO CUTE!!!!!"

Jem and Pounce came back a minute later with generous amounts of sparkly chains looped round each of their necks. They also had difficulty controlling giggles, and I suddenly wondered if by any chance they had been standing outside the door for any length of time... They solemnly dropped the loot on top of the pile.

~~~

My head hurt majorly after that episode, but - well, it _did_ matter cos it _hurt_ \- but it was rather less important that it would have been if the exertion had been for a less worthy cause. My whole body was buzzing that night, but not just from the pain and that junk.

Weird timing, I suppose, but as I drifted into dreams of free falling with a topaz parachute, I felt tiredly happier than I had in ages.


	4. Pathétique

I woke up at the north pole.

It was freezing, just like I'd expected.

And...

Hehe, did you believe me? Did I have you going there? No?

Well, for your information, _I_ honestly thought I _had_ somehow got the arctic in the middle of the night - I'm not at my most rational when I'm half-asleep.

And it _was_ freezing.

But let's try this again...

I woke up shivering.

Then I realised someone had been sick, and it was most probably me. I could smell it before I'd even opened my eyes. One of those smells you get very used to very quickly without exactly meaning to. Vomit. Blood. All the other junk in the kitty litter. Day in, day out - along with the laughs and the silly games and pretend pearls, there was always something there to remind me of the awful state I was actually in. So annoying that I couldn't actually _do_ something about it now, not even run away.

And that's the truth. Fiction's so much nicer, don't you think?

I didn't want to move. So I shouted a bit first. Someone come help me! But it felt so stupid, in the silence of near-morning, yelling out - what? 'Help?' would hardly cut it, it's not like I was dying. 'Hello?' was a bit redundant, but I tried anyway. "Mungo!" I cried at last. "Mungo!" He couldn't hear, of course. All the way downstairs could have been halfway across the universe; didn't make any difference. Darkness was solid. Sickly soft velvet. I could focus my eyes on any one point in the void in front of me... Funny; you can't do that with light. But I couldn't make myself shout loud enough. I didn't really even want to. Could just imagine Mungojerrie sprinting up the stairs and running headlong into the living room door. Scratch scratching on the glass panelling like a faithful puppy or something. _Let me in Teaz, I need to help you..._

No. And I really stopped yelling when the thought grabbed me that it might make me sick again.

I still wasn't moving and the silence was getting to me, like it was freezing me still, holding me in place. So I started talking to myself; quietly, but out loud. I hadn't done that for a while. I don't think I was very articulate. _Get yerself up, Teaz.... Tha's it. Paws steady - come on, steady..._

My legs actually wouldn't take it. I flopped. Rolled sideways. ARGH, I _hated_ that carpet! It probably hated me too, the way I kept liberally covering it in my rejected food. I kept rolling around until I was sort of vaguely less saturated in sick (pleasant image, isn't it? When you're sick, they sure do it to you properly; no one skimps on the details around here.) Then I lay still on the carpet, tried to sleep again. No blanket. I felt exposed, and cold, though in this state a blanket probably wouldn't have helped much anyway.

As I slipped off to dreamland again, I thought a vague "Congrats" to myself... I hadn't lost control, gone hysterical or blown up the house while the owners were away. I'd been calm. Made it. I was to some weird degree (probably off the scale) OK, and I'd done it all-on-my-very-own.

It wasn't much comfort, when I came to think about it. It felt like I was getting _used_ to this.

~~~

I meowed in complaint when the human picked me up when I was still half asleep. He was getting me off the sick-covered floor, which seemed a good idea on principal, but it made me ache all over. They didn't wash me off properly; they wouldn't even let Mungo do it. They just sponged me off with a luke-warm flannel. So I meowed, in half-hearted annoyance. _I deserve better than this!_ I told them. _I'm High Queen Rumpelteazer and I only take the best!_

Sheesh, what a life these royals must have.

It was almost like I was moaning out loud to try to shut up the other thoughts inside my head which were running dangerously near the edge. _Oh, Heaviside... just get me out of this and I'll never want 'the best' of anything ever again... Just get me out of this..._

"Teaz..."

Oh, why...? Why does that single syllable on his tongue sound so - I dunno - just like it does... Why does it make me feel like it does? Why is he so wonderful? Why is he so _him_? _Mungojerrie...._

"'Ow are ya?"

It had become almost a ritual. He asked, I answered. "Foine..." I said.

Then, on cue: "Ya sure?"

Slowly, I nodded my head. "Yeah. It's OK." I shifted in the newly laundered and folded blankets; so uneasy, so uncomfortable, so un-OK. "Oi'm tired, Mungo. Oi'm jus' gonna sleep a bit."

He nodded sadly, holding my gaze.

I looked at him a bit longer, then I closed my eyes, mercilessly, shutting him out.

~~~

"All 'Ail 'Igh Queen Rumpelteaza..." I said to myself, again, when I woke. Again and again and again. "Empress of the Livin' Room... or dyin' room, woteva.. Ruler of all she surveys... which ain't tha' much, really...."

Gaaaaah.... It was wearing a bit thin.

Why?? I didn't know why I getting so grumpy now. The drugs, maybe. Blame the drugs. Had to be the drugs. Or maybe I'd just used up my cheerfulness quota for the time being.

And I was bored. I was _very very very_ bored. It should have been a plus point that I was at least aware enough to be bored, but it was just so _boring_ that it hardly seemed worthwhile. It was B O R I N G. Do you understand just how BORING it is to be just lying in a half-made bed that smells of your sickness and their half-hearted attempts at sterilisation? And to be so used to the stupid basket you were spending your days - days and days and _days_ \- in, that you even _dreamt_ about every single toothmark and line and tear in it?

The humans still didn't think it was a good idea for Mungo to be around me the whole time, and so I'd just go crazy waiting for him to be allowed in. So what if I wasn't sure about my feelings for him, or his for me, or mine about me, or any of that? - I wasn't about to work it out if I never saw him! Usually, by the time he came, I'd spoil it because I'd run out of coherent thought by about 9am. _And_ the same rule seemed to apply for Pounce and Jem and any other members of my royal court, only they had the added inconvenience of being checked at the door for any germs, fleas, mites, maggots or sub-machine-guns that they might be carrying. I sometimes tried to just sleep through it all, but although I could usually manage it, it just made me feel slow and sicker and still sleepier. Besides, I was dreamt funny things. Not haha funny now either. Funny that made me wake up to the smell of sick - yep, it happened a few more times.

The apparent ban on chocolate really sucked as well, although I had been kinda expecting that. It must have been a fluke that I'd kept it down that first time; maybe it was again all the new funny drugs causing it, but again I was puking up just about everything I ate or drank.

Still.... _mustn't let these things get me down, right?_

Right?

_I can handle this..._

I tried to be careful with myself so that I never had to repeat the hysteria I'd experienced... how long ago was it? I got to know the warning signs; my breath would cut out and my heart panicked and jumped, trying uselessly to pump oxygen when there was none, then the roaring in my head and through my ears. My eyes would have shut by this point and I'd probably be choking myself on whatever I was coughing up that day, tying my stomach into knots and curling myself into a little ball of hurt. _Never, never again._

I'd gotten pretty close a couple times. Usually though, just as the whisper-screams started up, there would be Mungo; my saviour, my angel, the arial spirit that was such a heavy load on my fraught conscience; and he'd be holding me, keeping my head above water. It'd be OK. It usually was.

~~~

Jemima came to see me by herself one day, but it all went a bit wrong when I was violently sick right then and there and in front of her, and not all in the kitty litter. She valiantly helped Mungo to clean me up and then he left awkwardly and we tried to have a laugh about the unbelievably soppy antics of Victoria and Plato she reported to me. I asked her slyly how Pouncival was, and she told me, and I tried a happy hyper giggle, but it turned into a painful cough half way through. Jem looked panicked, tried to help by hitting me on the back, but did it in such a gentle way that it did absolutely no good whatsoever.

I stopped coughing by myself eventually, I usually did.

"So," I tried again, grinning determinedly.

"So..." She looked around the little area where I lived. "Someone been plundering the royal court?" she joked. Well, it was looking a bit pitiful; certainly worse than when she'd last seen in it. Remnants of Glorianna; most of the jewels gone and the chocolate packet only remaining due to fierce guarding of said object.

"Yeah. The 'umans." I shrugged, painfully. "Sumfin's apparently wrong with gettin' all 'em necklaces covered in me sick a coupla times a day." Grin. Yeah, well, _I_ was allowed to joke about it too, you know. "Oi've managed to keep 'old of a few choice items, though."

"Yeah," she nodded, looking around again. "Hey, I remember that one! That's the one me'n Pounce nicked for you!"

"Yup!" The grin was holding up, just about, even if the words were running a bit dry.

"So..." I should have kept count of how many times we'd said that... "D'you want your royal court to meet again?"

I managed to keep it up at sort-of-smile level.

She was trying to try so hard to act natural, but it was as if she couldn't remember what that is either. Couldn't blame her. If I were her I probably wouldn't have known what to do around me either. If that makes sense...

"Oi dunno..." I said hopelessly, "if ya want to..."

"You don't?" Big eyes only a little bewildered. Heaviside, kittens shouldn't have to cope with this... For that matter, neither should _I_!

I shook my head. "Well, Oi don' mind.... Don' matter."

"OK..."

I squinted at the wall opposite. I could never quite see the window from here. I learned to learn a lot from the shadows. "I's gettin' dark, Jem," I sighed. "Oi suppose ya oughta go an' pay a token visit to yer own 'umans."

"Suppose so," she said, sighing too and getting up. "It's been great seeing you, Teaz," she said politely. Wow, I never had the guts for stuff like that.

"Yeah..." Well, that sounded stupid. 'It's an honour to have you meet me,' type thing. Hmmm. Couldn't even string a decent sentence together. Nice going.

She left the room, and I was left pondering over it all again, falling into dark-dreamy and drained, tired thoughts.

Things weren't making a huge amount of sense in general lately. I felt like I was thinking too much, but I was never getting any closer to a conclusion that would make everything in the world fit together in a flash of brilliance. Well, alright, that's hardly surprising; I'd've settled for something to explain WHY this was happening to me... No, forget that, if there was a real reason, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. What I wanted was to _get better._ No, forget that too. _Be better._ None of this intermediate bumbling around on the edge of illness, never knowing what, if anything, was really holding me down.

 _Please....._ Oh.... oh Life, I was begging. No 'settling for', no very funny jokes inside me anymore, just a plea. _Oh please... tell me if it's too much to ask..._

I didn't like thinking like that. Defeatist, death-drivel. I was OK... _I'm fine, Mungo, really I am..._ Just tired. _Just a bit worn out._ Beaten up inside. _Call me again when I'm a little more myself._

~~~

A few days later, and I'd heard a new word from the humans lately: infection.

That could explain it. The grumpiness, the extra injections. They were just pumping up my body with whatever they thought could wipe out the death-bugs. Oh, hurrah, it's all coming together, I'm so happy. Not.

Infection...

Oh, I knew what that was all about alright. Back on the streets there'd been a whole lot of _infection._ Unclean wounds - who was there to clean you up? - and poison would just somehow get in you and then wouldn't get out no matter what you did. Or through something you ate, that would do too. Food poisoning, water contamination, call it what you want, it ended the same way. Nothing you ever actually saw. Just the stories, and never too tall because there was simply no point in exaggerating this sort of truth.

It must've only taken a couple of seconds. Funny, that. Hit by a car, open up a vein or two and it's _BOOM_ \- Rumpelteazer, you're infected, contaminated, poisoned... and guess what? Yer gonna die.

And there was this interesting thought floating around in my head lately: it wouldn't be like this on the streets. There wouldn't have been any humans holding me down there. That little spunky kit inside me, whoever she was, was yelling at me that this was all my fault for going soft on the humans. Who knows? Maybe it was. And that was part of it: I just didn't know.

Whoever was up there, or down there, or wherever, pulling the strings was seriously going to get it when I met them, I growled to myself. But it was only a half-hearted threat. Something like nostalgia was choking me, or maybe it was just my body fluids up my throat. Little Rumpelteazer would go and give someone hell for this, I thought. She wouldn't just sit back and let herself fall apart. Or maybe memory had given me coloured sunglasses, or whatever the phrase was. Little Rumpelteazer would probably just have a laugh about it. In fact, on second thoughts, this just _wouldn't have happened_ to Little Rumpelteazer. It would have happened to someone else, and she/I'd have been around to cheer them up. The only other thing I might have been good for.

I suppose I was just dodging the fact: if this had happened back then to "Little Rumpelteazer": the streetwise stray with the impossibly cheery outlook coupled with a hard-headed acceptance of The Way Life Was, she/I'd be dead by now. No wonder-drugs to keep my heart from collapsing, no one to pay the vet's bill. Not even anyone to pull me out of the road in the first place, actually. I wouldn't have lasted five minutes.

I'd be dead by now.

It was about then that the treacherous thought came sliding around my achy head. _And dead mightn't be so bad..._

Heaviside, if only I _knew_! If death wasn't so bad, then surely life was pure bliss, but I felt like I was straddling limbo just then. Or trapped in purgatory, maybe. Was this my punishment? No one seemed to know just how long it would be before I'd kick the bucket. How long I'd be stuck in the middle.

_Hey, Death, maybe you'd like to make a couple things clear to me?_

I'd heard of people cheating death - or playing some stupid game against Him/Her/It for their lives. Good on principal, but I couldn't play chess.

_Ordinarily I'd challenge you to a running race, but your mate Malady or whatever his name is seems to be fixing the odds a little on that one._

For all I never planned for my life, or my death, I wanted and needed the security of someone else doing all that for me. Someone it just came natural to. It struck me a little painfully that maybe Death was just like that, too. A play-it-as-it-comes trickster disco dancer. Maybe Death was a practical joker who never planned anything and just liked sticking its hand in a lucky dip to see who to knock off today. I didn't like that idea much. Even the good old black-robed figure with the pointy stick and serious eyes appealed more than this new wild guy. A Death who played mind games and drowned kittens in hessian bags.

Oh, where was I going with all this anyway?

Nothing made sense.

~~~

I shouted at Mungojerrie.

That's just me, isn't it? Everyone knows it. Happy and non-threatening most of the time, but watch out for the volatile girl; her emotions can shoot right off the other end of the scale. I really don't know how he coped with me. I mean, he's no mature Munkustrap or golden-idol Tugger and not perfect (probably), but whatever he was was close enough for me. Too close, sometimes. It felt like he was getting right inside me, like I never wanted to keep any secrets from him ever again. Scary how much he cared. Scary how I could ever risk losing that.

We were doing the usual "you OK"/"yeah"- _can taste blood_ "-"fine!" thing. He was getting more persistent; waiting for me to snap under this caring pressure, it felt like.

"Ya sure you're OK? Yer gonna be fine, yeah?"

What the hell was he doing, asking _me_?? How was I supposed to know? It was like we were chucking a ball back and forth: reassure me, reassure you; only I kept dodging, never able to give honest reassurance and trying never to beg for it.

"Foine."

"Teaz, Oi know it 'urts..."

"Oi'm foine." _wish my stomach would stop tying itself up, wish I could breathe normally._

"You can tell me, Teaz...." _Then why do you sound so scared?_ "Oi - Oi know yer 'urting." _Maybe cos you are -_

"Stop saying that!" Words tearing painfully from my throat. "You don' know a bloody thing 'bout 'ow it feels!" I yelled and yelled again, freezing my thought processes. Had to get this out... "'Ow - 'ow dare ya say tha'? You _don' know_!"

The words recoiled like a whip and slapped me in the face half a second later.

Apart from anything else it was just a stupid blatant lie.

I didn't need a mirror these days, it was like my pain rubbed off on him and I could see me reflected so well in his eyes. He knew how I felt.

"Oh, 'Eavisoide," I breathed unevenly, "Oi'm sorry Mungo..." Pathetic whispering, wasn't it? Pathetic and useless and just wasting my time, and his - his time kinda seemed more important. Mine didn't seem worth much now. "Y'know Oi don' mean it..."

"Yeah, Oi know." He sat down next to me, leaning his head on the plastic edging of the basket. Sighed. "Oi know. Teaz - we're always gonna be- friends, yeah?"

Funny how he had to make that a question. "Yeah," I said. "Always," though it was breaking my heart into thousands of little plastic pieces, "Mungo. Sorry." never thought it would be so much - hurt like this -

"Oi-" he started, then scratched his ear, shaking his head. Too complicated. "Love ya," he said, almost shrugging. It had just been there all along.

_I -_

"- Love ya always," I replied, my smile hurting my eyes. Simplicity itself, eh? Then why was it hurting even worse...? Another piece in this mess. Our fragmented lives and we could never get anything out straightforward...

\- _Love you so much._

Oh... _Mungojerrie...._ I didn't deserve this... _My Mungojerrie..._ If he was my angel, then I was nothing more than a pleasantly sparkly fairy, but all too mortal and all the glitter knocked off.

_All too mortal._

Well... I had to ask sometime, didn't I? Had to bounce that ball back...

"When am Oi gettin' betta, Mungo?" An appeal to my angel, my oracle, my all. He was all I could trust, but then I knew he couldn't bear to tell me the truth.

"Soon." He smiled, and as my insides squirmed, I thought I thanked him for that. It was all going a little strange lately - almost like role reversal. I was supposed to be the one to cheer him up, and most importantly, I was never supposed to have any doubts, or fears, or worries. Not ever. I was always Fine, remember? But there I was, finally giving in and just asking the dumb question. And there he was. Smiling bravely. Reassuring.

Lying.

 _Yer not gonna get better, Teaz,_ I told myself. _You better believe it, cos no one else seems like they're going to._

I felt like a broken doll. Not anything porcelain and perfect; probably not even silk or wax or cotton. Probably just some cheap perky plastic contraption. Pull the string at the back and she'll giggle inanely. I'd had some good times; been out and about and faded in the sun and had a laugh or two, but now the mechanism was slowing down and it could only be so long before someone just chucked the cracked and careless pieces away....

And I couldn't make any of it unhappen again.

 _You've been telling porkie-pies, Mungo,_ I wanted to scold him babyishly, and I wanted to laugh. But it didn't come out. Instead, weak and stupid as it was, I was crying into his fur.

"Teaza!"

Paw on my shaking shoulders, but I couldn't stop.

Helpless.

And of course as the sobs got worse and my whole useless body started to quake uncontrollably, I felt the awful squeezing in my stomach and my ribs and my guts were heaving and protesting... I sort of rolled towards the kitty litter, Mungo's comforting weight on my thrashing body half-hindering, but in the end it seemed I didn't even have the power to spew it up _properly_ , and there was nothing left inside me anyway. I was embarrassingly and unstoppably coughing and coughing up just acid and blood and probably half the drugs I'd just been given...

I missed the kitty litter. Mostly it went all over me, and then I didn't care, just kept wailing and coughing blood and choking on my own vomit. Couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't hear. _It's all happening again..._ What did it matter anymore -

" - gonna die 'nyway-" I burbled.

How much did he hear? It was really happening to me again. Worse. Hysteria and I wasn't even laughing this time... Words just black marks on a page too close to my eyes. Mungojerrie was talking to me too, but it wasn't making much sense, and it almost didn't seem like his voice. Choking. We were both choking to death and drowning and -

"...Yer not gonna die, Teaz." Sound from the white/black noise. Words like light. It was such an incredible damned-and-blessed effort to hear.

I panted, hearing my breath now rushing in my ears as my sobs were cut short. My heartbeat slowed, winding down like a clockwork toy.

Mungojerrie, carefully and gently licking my fur clean. "Yer not gonna die."

"Don'..." I just managed the word, broken.

He paused for a second.

"Mungo, why've you always gotta 'elp me?" I whispered.

"Cos Oi love ya."

Four words. Nothing superfluous or fancy, just... that. Simple enough, no? No. Mungojerrie&Rumpelteazer simply happy, carefree and happy-go-lucky and it's all-alright-for-some, or so they said. They'll never get hurt. No... We were never simple, and it never made sense, not even for us. _Love._ The air was mist and crying, and it _hurt..._ Heaviside, it hurt so much... Love hurt and life hurt and I couldn't do anything right and I couldn't do without it...

"Everything is gonna be alright."

 _Liar_. Oh... what did it matter?

He went back to cleaning my fur,

I shut my eyes.

"Everything'll be alright," he whispered again. Oh, Everlasting Cat, he was so gentle; everything should have been so soft and perfect, only I was killing myself, and spoiling it all... "It'll be alright." Like I was that kitten. "It'll be alright. Promise."

My tears leaked slowly into the blanket.

I ask you....What could I say to that....?


	5. canon

We didn't talk about it.

We just - didn't mention anything about me dying anymore.

I guess I'd hoped that somehow this sort of thing would bring a weird sort of maturity, but now I wasn't actually too sure about that. Felt like I was being stretched in both directions. On the one hand: I could be in My Final Hour, and frail and fading and old and accustomed - on the other: I was small and helpless and screaming because I didn't understand and I just couldn't handle what was happening to me. Dying takes all the fun out of being alive, you might say.

Poor Mungojerrie.

At least the not-understanding-anything-thing doesn't get me down quite the way it does him. At least I'm not going to have to worry about it much longer anyway. At least I'm not the one who's gonna be alone and upset when I -

Yeah.

Well - like I said, I wasn't thinking about it. I wasn't going to let any of these stupid morbid traitor-thoughts mess with my head. Really. Not gonna get me down. Ever.

Only it was, of course.

It was just getting so hard to keep happy now. Anything 'chirpy' usually came in a kind of stupid croak instead. _I'm trying to keep afloat here, honest..._

It was just getting so hard.

~~~

"Woulda brought you some chocolate, but..."

I just nodded and gave an imaginary shrug to let him know he didn't have to finish. Pounce was so cute like that. Trying, but just never able to keep it together. Him and Jem. Little hopelessly smiling bags of useless energy. Sitting and reminiscing with the dying. What a life.

We talked about lots of wonderfully irrelevant and irreverent junk. My mouth just shot off a load of tired questions and they responded dutifully. I tried, I really did. Mungojerrie tried, weakly smiling his constant encouragement.

 _It's not fair._ It really got to me. _We're trying here._ My mind fixed on that point and held it. _If we're all trying so hard and if love is that strong -- why is this happening to us? To me?  
_

I flattered myself that they'd miss me, and I wasn't sure if this made me feel better or not.

When they left, I felt like I should make a speech or something. _You two look after each other, OK?_ sorta thing. _You stick together through thick and thin and never let each other go. Promise me, because for some reason I care about your happiness, and maybe even imagined I'd done something for it....  
_

_Enjoy your love..._ The thought just drifted after them. Bitter or hopeful? _Enjoy your life..._

And, Heaviside, what was I doing, thinking like that? What the bloody hell was I doing, being so bloody stupid and sentimental when I didn't have the damn time and - Bast take it all - I was only a couple years old...

You know I didn't swear much? I'd decided that I obviously wasn't doing it anywhere near _enough,_ and thought I may as well try it out a couple times. And so I did. Trying out my wonderful new vocabulary on whoever I felt like. The humans, much of the time, not that they exactly got what I was meowing at them. And I think Mungo got a little more than his fair share of bitter whispers and moans. You know, it didn't really have much of a thrill; just words, after all.

I gave up on it pretty quick.

Anger was just too tiring, and it was all useless anyway.

I was getting to the point of not caring, and I hated myself all the more for that.

~~~

I kept Jem and Pounce away the next day. I got Mungo to tell them No, I wasn't really awake enough, and maybe some other time. The truth was I couldn't bear to let them see me. Not just that. I didn't really want to see _them_ , and the thought of course made me feel a hundred times worse. I just didn't think I could cope with their eyes so confused and pained and _\- pity._ Pity from them, and they were _younger_ than me. It made me feel so old and infirm... or young and helpless... Screaming kitten, fading old fool... either way: pathetic and dying.

I let Jennyanydots in, though; later that day, because I hadn't seen her lately and I needed something to lift me out of my thoughts.

So she visited me out of her jolly old-fashioned courtesy, and I could tell it was a burden for her. A bumbling darling with all the most inappropriate words of irreverent comfort, but I guess I was starting to see through that. Concern. Pity. Well, of course. Her own hurt. Poor old dear thing...

'Darling.' 'Poor old thing.' Where was I getting this from, anyway? Now didn't strike me as the perfect time for me of all people to be cultivating any sort of affectionate pity, but there it was. I guess it just came of having altogether too much time on my paws. Nothing to do. Not that I'd ever exactly had a _purpose_ in my life or anything like that, but at least I'd had a choice.

"You're... looking fine, Rumpel," Jenny said, smiling slightly. "Keeping... a trim figure and all...." She patted her own ample waist and I laughed politely. And envied her. What I wouldn't have given for a bowl of cream... No, scratch that. What I wouldn't have given for the ability not to bring it right back up again a couple minutes later and ruin the carpet.

But Jenny's words struck home, alright. Never again was I going to think of "slim" as something admirable, and I'd probably have an absolute phobia of "skinny" for the rest of my life. _Trim figure, Jen? Ha._ I was skeletal. Try "bag of bones", only without much in the way of a bag.

My eyes probably couldn't be bothered to focus properly, so she might not have seen me watching her watching me. She looked so... pained. Like everyone seemed to around me, which just made me dread what I must have looked like myself. I suppose you might call her the closest thing I had to a mother - for all I used to keep my distance from any of the elders/oldies. But she never kept away from any of us - it was always: "Are you alright, dear?", "Here, let me help you with that..." - you know, the interfering busybody omni-maternal figure you can't help but love, no matter how hard you try. Always there to patch us up, to cheer us up...

Which was probably why she was so broken just then. Because _I_ was. _How come you can't make it all alright, Jenny?_ It was a little petulant, pleading voice in my head. A little helpless kitten I had only become now. _Kiss it better for me, please..._

What had I done to everyone?

"Pouncival's been talking about you," she said, conversationally.

"Eh?" I asked, super-articulately.

"Pouncival," she repeated, nice and clearly, as if I was going deaf as well as the rest of it. "Talking about you."

 _Why's it always gotta be me?_ I asked myself... _Maybe I always was playing for attention... but not now!_

_It's the way I'm made. I can't help it._

_...Well I can try._

"Tell me about the mice," I said suddenly.

She blinked, and I hoped she wouldn't take as an intentional fob-off and turn in the conversation. Then she looked flattered. _Yeah. It's about time I gave her at least this in return._

"Well..." She almost didn't know where to start, so I just feebly grinned my encouragement, which seemed just to bemuse her further. (If my face looked as bad now as I guessed it did, I'm surprised the sheer freak-out value of such a vision didn't scar her permanently, let alone scare her.)

"Well..." she said again. "It's been quite a productive week. Cheese straws on Monday went really rather well, and then we put on a bit of a concert in the evening...."

Monday... I thought vaguely. When was Monday? Time had flown away, right away and out the window and I was completely free of it. I was caught up in another current, blown about like a wingless, helpless bird; a feather; a paper streamer bleached in the sun... I tried to focus on the hazy words Jenny was speaking, but it was sounding more and more like I imagined a lullaby might sound, not that I knew. Just a comforting wash of sound. My head buzzed as I tried to clarify further.

Tiredness and drugs flowed doggedly around in my blood. Closing my eyes, I thought I could see my heart beat unevenly and taste old vomit and metallic cleanliness on my eyelids. I wondered distantly how offended Jenny would be when she found I'd fallen asleep while she was talking, and I added another good deed to my list of what-I'll-do-if-and-when-I-get-better.

_I'm sorry, Jenny.... I'll make it up to you... Hehe...maybe I'll help teach good language and diction to the mice, that'd be fun...._

 ~~~

Listless, I think, is the word you'd have used to describe me. For the first time in my life, probably. Things change, eh?

I did a lot of lying still, looking vague and dull because I couldn't summon the energy to arrange my features any other way. It was partly the drugs, I guess - injected now several times a day, into whatever part of my stupid body wasn't already too swollen to take any more. And partly just that I think the -gravity - of the whole situation was getting to me. You know, there was a reason I never used to take things seriously... Overheard human conversations more and more when I was awake. Talk of my "condition", their "options". Too tired to block them out now, so the words went straight into my head where my flippant brain could translate conveniently. _She ain't looking so good, is she? Yup, she's gonna die. Maybe we should just bump her off first to make a clean job of it..._

Listless.... I told myself I didn't care. Didn't give a - whatever - that I was really approaching end-game this time.

They still didn't let Mungo stay with me all the time, and in some strange, horrible way I was glad. There wasn't anything to say anymore. There wasn't much I could _do_ either, especially without help, but I did want to prove the point a couple times.

One day, I tried to drag myself over to the floor-length windows, basket and all. I think it actually took me hours. Hanging my limbs pathetically out and gripping my claws in to the carpet. Grab, pull, grab, pull. Like rowing. I was escaping properly from my 'cave' under the occasional table; its cozy, stinky comfort was doing my head in. And I wanted to go and see the sky again somehow.

But I couldn't do it. I just gave out in the middle of the carpet and flopped uselessly down again, panting like I'd just done something great. _It's not fair._ I think I even started crying.

And Mungojerrie padded up the stairs, someone opened the door for him - his face looked so - pained, confused. Just like it had done for the last few weeks, really.

"Teaz?"

I looked at him. _That's me name._ "Get me to the window, please," I said.

He never argued with me. I guess it's some sort of death-bed custom; honour the wishes of the crazy person who's falling to pieces right in front of you, because pretty soon they'll just be memories and milestones and ashes....

_Oh Heaviside...._

He gripped his teeth into the basket's edge and walked slowly backwards. I remembered how icky the plastic stuff tasted and pitied him, but he didn't seem to mind about that much. It even took him a bit of effort, and I guess that made me feel in some small way slightly less pathetic.

"Mungo..." I was shaking. I wanted to say it, well - I needed to. I dreaded it. No more pretending. No more 'Foine, Oi'm alright, honest...' Felt like no more me. I said: "When - Oi die -"

"Yer not gonna," he said; husky, gentle, desperate; like out of the tackiest love scenes that I would have laughed my head off at, if only laughing didn't _hurt_ so bloody much. Only it wasn't funny, of course, and I wasn't sure how much it was to do with love anyway.

"Yeah -" I tried to tell him.

"No."

"Mungo!"

"Yer not."

"Oi'm-"

"No."

"Foine!" I was almost angry at him. "IF, then. IF, on the vaguest possibility Oi should chance to somehow exit this wonderful loife of mine..." _Then..._ All those excess words had tired me out, and so I stopped. "Then..." And I stopped again. Then - what? Then he should find a nice queen and settle down and live his life again? He should always remember me with a smile cos that what I would have liked? Past tense. He should - I didn't know. Maybe there wasn't anything wrong with those sentiments in themselves, but can you imagine me saying them?? Can you imagine anyone _real_ saying them?? Love and death.... make you do stupid things... maybe that was it, and maybe all those platitudes were just waiting round the corner ready to gobble me up and get me saying them any second now. And - well, you never know - he _might_ just 'grow strong in my memory', though I don't really see how that'd work. I'm not much worth remembering.

And so I never continued.

"Yer not gonna die," he repeated.

"'Ow can ya say that...?" I said, too softly, like I was already fading. "Oi - Oi thought you were braver'n that."

My eyes towards the sky, I never knew if his face fell. Well... I did. Of course I did. If I hadn't had time to get to know just how to hurt him in these last couple weeks, then I never would. And I had just kept on hurting him...

"'msorry." Not that it mattered what I said. Probably nothing I did now mattered. That sounded awfully pessimistic, I guess, but... Maybe even I had to take things seriously at some point. Now seemed just about right.

"...It's alroight." No making excuses for me. We were past pointless words, or just about. But he still asked me: "Can I...?" and waited for me to nod frantically and pathetically before he lay down beside me.

Love and death, love and death... Love, and - Just one more thing to say then; I'd say it just once more, and after all, why not? "Love you, Mungojerrie. Always will." My voice came out all wrong.

I couldn't see his face when he answered, but I didn't need to. His paw on my back and my strange heartbeat against his side, that would do. "Love you. Love you f'rever."

And that was it. The moment I really fell apart. Oh Heaviside, oh everlasting Cat, oh spirit of the ages, oh - oh Life, I felt so complete... and so, so confused. Like I was being cheated out of the rest of it somehow. But - calm. It didn't matter. I'd tied up my loose ends.

We just lay still. Me, with eyes almost working, with my head hanging out in the vague direction of the stratosphere, finally taking notice of the universe. Wow, big words. But they suited the bigness, and sheer awe of the sky. There was nothing at all limited here - nothing I could stick "just" in front of, and pass off as futile. It's weird. I never really used to look at things much, let alone think they were pretty. Well, unless they were shiny and sparkly and worth stealing. But this had a different sort of beauty. I lay there, staring, thinking: it was everything. It was all I needed, all I could take... This was... This was - Life, in a way, and it would do. Yeah. People always suppose somehow that you can never see the sky over the city, but it's not true. It's still there, just look up.

_Bit of a stupid time to start living, Teazer..._

I felt like I was floating up there, wingless again. Found myself watching the clouds move; faster, slower, like they really didn't care, or else couldn't do anything about it. Felt I was drifting away and dispersing and dissolving into the air. I wasn't... sad... really. This wasn't so bad...

 _Love and death, love and_ \- I was choking, sobs softly clutching at my throat. Just two thoughts, just two words, just one tiny flickering life no one had probably ever noticed, but the sky was brilliant above and shining for me _\- what else is there left now?_

I was shaking. He was still there. Touching me always so gently... _Ya shouldn't do that, you know... I'll just kill you too._ But - _Just stay there, so I know I'm still here... Surprised your paw doesn't fall right through me.  
_

Weightless... I was weightless, and my bones were like birds'. Thin and transient as a cloud. Just drifting. Immaterial.

_Oh Mungo... when you gonna let me go?_

Evening. From distant downstairs I heard the strains of Pachelbel's Canon. An ironic requiem if ever there was one, but I didn't feel I minded much. Yeah, it would do. If I had to go, let it at least be pretty and let there by happy music while I did.

 _Love and -_ Life - and.... I was really going to miss the sky.


	6. finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter.

I woke up.

Sleep's a funny thing. I'd drifted into it that day/night with the vague expectation that _this was It_. The point of no return. The End. But that would have been way too convenient. If Death is a smartie-pants practical joker, it's unlikely I was gonna go any time when I was that ready and calm.

It looked like late morning, and the clouds had gone. Rained themselves out.

And so life went on. Technically, at any rate. It was slow and sort of sunny that day, not that I could taste the sunbeams anymore. I was still lying in the basket by the window and Mungo was still there, paw on my shoulder, fast asleep. I didn't wake him up. And there was another example of my selfishness staring me in the face: I hadn't really stopped to wonder when he got his sleep.

 _If and when I get better, Mungo,_ I promised him, _you get my cream ration for two weeks. Three. Four. - Well, however long you like. And take all the nice bits of the cat food. I'd offer you my special pearls if I thought you'd ever want to wear them. Hey, I'll even let you win a running race a couple times!_

 _But..._ Certainly made me think. I had nothing of any value to offer him, not even in this vague _if and when._ With a strong emphasis on the _if._ But why not keep planning? Made as much sense as the whole "High Queen" thing, and that had been a lot of fun. So... I could go and steal him... a... what? Something really special, like... And that's where it all broke down, of course. With me, it's simple: something sparkly and bright, or something sweet and light and edible, or anything - you know me, I just love presents. Just about anything will get me hyper and up and _ohthankyouIloveyouforever!!!!_ He's not so excitable like that, less passionate - or maybe more. Maybe it's just that he pays more attention to what counts.

But I was a shallow and petty queen, pretty in a cheap way, and ordinarily easily happy and hyper. Take that away, and what are you left with? Just me, and whatever I thought behind all that, which was shaping up to be nothing at all worth remembering. Smashed pieces of a cheap and chirpy fairy doll.

 _You have my heart already, you know that...?_ "Undying love" and all just seemed shallow too now, no payment for what he'd given me. Besides "undying" was just a contradiction of pretty much everything at the moment.

But for now, I _was_ living, because there wasn't much I could do about it either way.

Mungo woke up, and I didn't know what to do, so I shut my eyes again, just for the previously-giggle-making and still touching experience of him ever so lightly stroking my fur, soft like the morning rain on rooftops, like dawn on the skyline.

Maybe my love was shallow, but it was everything I had.

~~~

"Ta..." I said. Heartfelt, but brief; let's keep the sentences short here, people. Saves breath.

Mungojerrie had just looped a string of pearls around my neck. I didn't care that I'd probably sick up all over them, I was not not _not_ going down without my trademark. To most cats, after all, it was what defined me as me.

"Pretty..." he told me, smiling gently. "Ya always look good in pearls. Always look good, in fact."

"Fibber," I wheezed affectionately. Seriously, if you'd shown me a mirror I'd've shown you seven years' bad luck, right off.

"Nah. Pearls suit yer fur, too."

"Yeah. Roight colour, Oi guess." I continued - so much for saving breath. "'Ey, wot's my favourite colour, Mungo?"

"Yer favourite? This some koinda test?"

"Nah... Oi'm jus' not sure I got one. Seems loike sumfin you oughta 'ave at some point."

"There's lotsa toime..." he said weakly, - second lie in as many minutes - before adding. "An' whoi jus' choose one? Yer a rainbow gal, Oi think."

Grin. It hurt, but it was worth it. Wow, we could come up with some sappy stuff... Gotta love those ridiculous (romantic...?) moments. Rainbows. How clichéd and how cute could you get?? I imagined cuddling up against him and staying there, warm and comfortable, until my mind slipped out again and I slept.

 

~~~

It was beginning to feel in some way like it had those first few days. I was guessing, or maybe just hoping, that they'd upped my dosage of sleepy-drugs and pain-killers AGAIN - at least that would explain my inability to stay awake for more than about an hour at a time, max. It was getting so hard to keep my concentration, too, which I hated more than anything. If my body was a wreck, at least let my mind keep working!

The vague waking thoughts I was getting tended to run on a cycle - Death/love/me/it hurts/Mungo/what now? - and only half way through would I'd realise that I'd been on this train of thought before.

The more I thought about it, the more I became really convinced that no death would be in any way satisfactory for me; well, certainly not anytime soon. "Death in the heat of battle" rather loses its appeal when you think of the realities of the street brawls which were the closest we had to those noble charges of yore - just as much pride; just as much, all things relative, at stake. Just more bloody and pointless. These hazy times, I was getting weird memories and even dreams of back-log days - Macavity against some pollicle, Macavity against the latest challenger, Macavity against anyone brave or stupid enough to rub him the wrong way. Or Macavity's minions, more like. Trust his Highness never to risk his pretty face on us small fry. You were lucky to get a quick death in a fight like that, and no one had much in the way of medical help on hand. Bodies behind dustbins, waiting for the humans to shoo the rats away. I don't remember a whole lot from those early days.

Illness, infection, slow death by poisoning - none of those had ever exactly ranked high on my "Ten Best Ways to Die" list. Hmmm. How typical that it seemed that was the way I was gonna go. And how ironic that flippancy was just about my only defence.

Dying in my sleep had always sounded alright, but as I'd just realised, I was never going to be ready at just the right moment. I wanted enough time to my things straightened out, all my loose ends tied up - but once I had, it was pretty darn certain that I'd just have wait some more in this limbo half-life.

Death was never convenient. Like love, I guessed. Never just at the right time, never as you'd imagined it, always final, and always irreversible.

_Missing you already, Mungojerrie..._

How had all this affected him? It was a bit of a dead and sterile question, but I was a little sick and muddled to be getting my head around serious rhetoric. I just started to wonder if there was any way in the world that he actually _felt_ as strong as he'd been lately. Or as optimistic; taking over from my parade there. I somehow didn't think so. _"Oi don' understand..."_ he'd said. Like it was something strange and alien and something to be ashamed of. He didn't like this happening to me, to us. _"Oi don' understand..."_ Yeah, well, neither did I. It would have maybe been nice, but I wasn't expecting it anymore.

The future was a dream-plain in moonlit tomorrow, and running home from the park and shimmering in the sunshine was just such a strange, blessed memory. Today I was lying still, still breathing, still awake, and dreaming such strange things... Nothing makes sense if you think about it that way. Life as a ridiculous whole is even kinda funny put like that. Nothing to lose anymore, at any rate.

~~~

Oddly enough, Mungo must have been thinking along the weird quasi-optimistic route of "nothing to lose" too.

I had the shock of my life waking up that morning.

The shock could have _killed_ me. Hehe, I would have laughed if it had. Well, I probably wouldn't actually, but anyway...

Macavity.

_Oh, man, someone call Demeter so we can have the proper introduction ceremony..._

It was one of the most surreal visions I've ever experienced - even more so than the flying chocolate - and this was actually _real._ Macavity, standing in all his fire-furred glory and clashing horribly with the pink-themed decor of the living room, looking distastefully - and more than a bit bemusedly - at the remnants of my royal court; a couple strings of pearls and the chocolate packet, kept for sentimental value. Mungojerrie was standing next to him, and seemed to be keeping the Fiend In Feline Shape in place by his sheer will- and glare- power.

"'s a surprise ta see you 'ere," I said, grinning in my head even if it wouldn't show on my face. There was little cool-cat Teazer; hey, I'd missed her in all this introspection.

"Maybe I should be surprised at your condition, Rumpelteazer," he said, casting a simply disdainful eye over me. I hated that. I know I'm hard to please, but - I was junk to him. Another scrap dragged out of the gutter that by some ridiculous accident got blown against her will to better times and then back again. "I'm not, though. I guessed your attitude would get you something like this someday."

My _attitude?? Why I oughta...._ What, that attitude, 'Cav? The eye-for-an-eye, pay-back-insults, violence-is-the-answer nonsense I learnt from _you_? Or did he mean my own brand of never-give-in, always-talk-back, don't-ever-ever-let-it-get-you-down. Didn't really sound like the sort of thing that should get you in a position where everything is _pushing_ you down, talking at all isn't easy, and giving in is the only logical course. Still, I hated logic.

_So it's all my fault, Macavity?_

Mungojerrie firmly acquainted us both with his decision of what the facts were. "Teazer, Macavity's here so he can use his magic to make you better."

I admit it. Something reacted. Whatever little spark of the crazy hope light-shows left inside me jumped.

My eyes moved very slowly.

"What...?" I asked quietly.

Macavity shook his head. "I decided on no such thing. I came here out of - interest, on Mungojerrie's suggestion."

"Tha' was koind of you," I huffed.

Mungojerrie shot me a warning look. I liked that. Liked that I wasn't too pathetically delicate for him to be annoyed at. He was telling me without words that I sure wasn't making this any easier on myself by insulting the Napoleon of Crime.

It felt good though, you know. In a weird kind of way. It was like - I'm either gonna get better or not. Right NOW. This is it, so why not speak my mind?

What's that metaphor? 'Train of thought', yeah? I remember. Well, I guess mine had jumped the tracks and was currently zooming down the uncharted zone of insane lane. Yes, I realised I wasn't making much sense. Fun fun fun fun.....

Mungojerrie's face was deadly serious. "You can make 'er better, Macavity. I know you can. Wha' - wha' do Oi 'ave to do to make you do it?"

Macavity smiled. Patronising, at both of us. Humble, self-sacrificing Mungojerrie making a serious offer for the life of stupid, selfish Rumpelteazer. What a pair of clowns, what stupid little pathetic dreamers. Stupid kits.

No.

"Ain't makin' no bargains, 'Cavity," I said, before he could get a word in. I was still good at that. "Mungo, don' you dare promise a loife of eternal servitude, ya daft..." I had to stop and cough and cough and cough. _There? See how pitiful I am, Macavity?_ "You gonna magic me better or wha'?"

"Why should I?"

"Oi'll love ya forever?" I offered cheekily, though it didn't quite sound right in the new voice of mine. "Mungo ain't gonna hate ya forever? Jus' cos Oi'm askin' you and it's a kinda friendly gesture to save the loife of a long-known comrade?? But no bargains."

He shook his head slowly. "Then what do I gain in this?"

I inflicted all the glare power of two swollen eyes. "You really wanna act like a 'eartless bastard, don't you?"

Mungojerrie was standing just in front of me, and I knew he was trying to protect me.

"What about that pet magician of yours?" Macavity asked, idly. He didn't even seem to react to my last comment.

"Ya mean Mistoffelees?" Mungo growled.

"Yes... he seemed adept enough when he so kindly returned Old Deuteronomy to you."

I checked his eyes for resentment. Anger. _Something_. Maybe it was just my vision giving out, but - nothing. He just looked bored.

Mungojerrie fumed. "An' consequently 'e's now takin' time out in rest an' recuperation and stickin' to li'l party tricks." Nice, Mungo. When he put his mind to it, he could glare better than me. "Tha's big magic, y'know!"

"So is this," Macavity said so smoothly. " _I_ don't relish draining my magic for the next week."

"This is her _loife_ we're talkin' about!! You can wait a bloody week!"

It may have been a bit of critical life decision for me, but I was still having to blink and slightly shake myself to stay properly awake and aware

"So can she," he countered calmly. "Wait for Mistoffelees."

"No, she can't."

He looked quizzical. "How so?"

"Oi'll be dead," I told him.

Well. Yeah. That was that out in the open, then. _Yeah, Mungo, I know. Stop it. Don't look at me like that. I know. Yes, I overheard the humans that day too._

"You won't be dead, Teazer." It was Macavity, speaking so gently I wondered if I was going delusional. This was _weird._ I mean; Demeter smiling, Munkustrap saying "What's up?", Jennyanydots and Tugger ...eugh... that happened, didn't it? - _that_ weird. Macavity looking at me. Pity. Pity. It was always pity, but I hadn't expected it from _him_. "Infection takes longer than that to kill you," he said, soft, "It's always so slow. Believe me."

"I's not tha'." Mungo didn't seem to want to say anymore. _I'll fill him in on the details, Mungo, don't you worry._

"The 'umans wanna kill me soon as Oi'm not gettin' better."

To save me the pain. Because my life was 'not worth living like this'. That's what they'd decided. Because I was simply becoming too expensive to support on this diet of drugs every single day into a limited infinity.

"Teaz..."

"Mungo?" I asked bleakly in return. "Wha'?"

His eyes. Breaking my heart. Just like I must have been breaking him. Eyes. Windows to the soul. His always were so hopelessly open and honest. No defenses. _Oh... Mungojerrie... I - I dunno what to say either._ Perfect time to exchange a wordless, meaningful embrace, but that had the obvious drawback of moving.

Macavity had still more reassuring words for me: "It would be quick, you know, that way. No more pain. Don't you hurt now?"

"Sometimes," I said through gritted teeth. Then: "Loike hell. Top marks fer observation there, 'Cavity."

"If you let them, there would be no more pain... They make it painless... It's just like going to sleep, they say."

"If Oi let them, Oi'll be dead. Think tha's the important issue 'ere. Oi don' wanna die!"

There. That was the whole point. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave. Screw the pain. I could have almost coped with it if I could just stick around here a bit longer...

"Rumpelteazer..." he said slowly, softly, like all those drugs to dull the pain....they'd stopped working... "why should I?" His ultimatum.

"Fer cryin' out loud!" I yelled, pretty pathetically really, because I almost was. "WHOI NOT?" And mine.

He exhaled slowly. "Let me tell you a story, Rumpelteazer."

Blink.

_What the -??_

But, hey, sure, go ahead. At least my ears were working OK.

"I know about infection. I once knew a queen, years ago... your age, maybe a little older... Blood-poisoned, infected from a metal nail. She didn't have the... privileges you do; no humans pampering her. I -" Did he hesitate? Macavity? My eyes flicked up to his. Something different. Unsure. "I couldn't do anything for her. I couldn't even help her die. It took months, Rumpelteazer, _months_ of her wasting away and fading before she was gone."

 _Gone?_ I thought vaguely, mentally staggering still. _Honestly, Macavity... I don't need euphemism anymore..._ Which was hardly the issue, but that's just me.

"Tha's it?" Mungojerrie asked with an effort to be scathing; after a pause - for what? Respect??

"That's all," said Macavity.

And.... and... so... Macavity, had he been in love? Was that what he was hiding behind those short sentences and strange hesitation? Macavity? HIM?

"But now.... ya can do it?" Mungojerrie; practical, desperate; cut across him

"I think I can."

"You _think_?" I asked - Well, not that it mattered, actually. I would happily have jumped to it on odd of a hundred to one against.

"Ya _can,_ " Mungo told him fiercely. Oh great, we'd got the point of giving pep talks to Macavity....

"I will do what I can," he said simply.

My mind felt the shift. It was like disbelief - or more - the shaky region approaching hope.... "I will help you," he said.

He wasn't going to admit he was giving in, he was just going to _say_ it just like that, like he'd never meant anything else.... And I wasn't going to rub it in, for a change.

"Rumpelteazer-" he addressed me, seriously, then stopped, and I looked up at him for second. I got it.

"This - is gonna 'urt, ain't it?" I said.

"More than you can imagine."

"Tha's OK," I said, grinning madly at him, "Ya can't imagine pain, can ya? Ta for the warning, 'Cav."

"Teaza..." Mungo offered me all the warmth in the world in his frightened eyes.

"Don' worry!" I practically cheered. "Oi'm gonna be better, Mungo!" I turned my head to Macavity. "OK? Wheneva yer ready."

The first thing he did was stick his claws right into my side. For a vivid split second I thought he was just gonna cheat and kill me - Mungo seemed to leap to the same conclusion, judging by the way he tried to leap at Macavity.

After that, I didn't exactly think much at all.

I'd imagined maybe if there was this much pain and nothing to do about it, I'd just relax and fall into the certainty, helpless but hopeful - but... it was _fire_ and stabbing and acid and -

"Ya sick bastard!" I screamed. "Macavi'y, you are SO gonna die!!!"

Ah, so that's where Little Selfish Brat Rumpelteazer went...

It was very sharply and definitely unclear somehow. Wasn't sure what I'd expected - fireworks? Wasn't sure if the lines of crimson flame were real or just in the sky inside my head or what. Fire ran through my veins, doing exactly what my body had been trying unsuccessfully to do for these past weeks - burn the infection right out of me.

Eyes shut and I could see fire lines of blood red through the ruined carpet, along my skin. Far off idea came that there was a point to this, and it didn't make much matter either way....

The fireball swelled, all of me, all the pain, ready to - _I'm bursting. Mungo, I'm gonna explode -_ pour out of my chest leaving the perfect shell-soul -

It was a real blackout, this one. About time too.

\-----------

P.S.

I was getting so used to waking up from unexpected lack of consciousness that it was almost getting boring. But, anyway, that's what I did. I opened my eyes again _again_ and found myself staring straight into Mungo's - upon which they did this incredible morphing thing from pure panic/concern/fear to elation/relief/joy and he stood there doing goldfish mouths for a couple seconds before yelling "TEEEAAZZAAAAA!!!" and dancing around the room. Phew.

So, great - in the end, Macavity saved my life. Which is a bit stupid-sounding really. I go through all this pain and love and revelations and near-death experiences and everything.... only to have some mangy, orang-utan-furred wannabe-warlord who I've never really anyway liked just magic me better?? Couldn't this have happened some other way? Or, just possibly, SOONER? Apparently not, was the sensible answer to that, and I wasn't exactly in a position to be reasonably ungrateful. So I wasn't. So I gave Macavity a huge hug, told him (and I'm not sure how much of it was just cheek) that his girl would have been proud, told him THANK YOU you stupid but maybe-not-so-heartless bastard, and gave Mungojerrie and even bigger hug.

And so.... Life went on. Again. I've noticed it has a habit of doing that. No matter if you're happy or sad or unconscious or dead or _whatever_ , life as a whole is just going to keep on keeping on and the earth is going to keep spinning. And no matter what's happening to you, no matter how incredible or amazing or awful, there's always gonna be billions of people out there with no more idea or care about you than you have about them.

Whoa, that was deep! Maybe I should go see Old Deuteronomy - I can just see us sitting by the hearth talking philosophy deep into the night...

I ran outside almost straight away. Smelled wet grass, tasted fresh sunlight. I stood out in the rain and let it fall over me. Your classic cleansing, I guess. Then I went a bit crazy and dragged Mungo into the garden pond.

It wasn't THAT deep.

I can tell you the humans weren't to pleased about that though. We arrived back on the doorstep, dripping and looking penitent with pent-up giggles like the adorable lost kittens of over a year ago, and received a similar treatment. They'd just about got over the shock which presumably comes with all miracle recoveries (the vet!! Stammering and s-s-saying how he'd n-n-never seen anything li-like it! M-miracle recovery...?), and they weren't exactly prepared to let us die of pneumonia, so we were both bundled up in blankets and fed oh-so-lovely gold-top cream...

Jem and Pounce have become something of protegees to us they go around wreaking miniature havoc in all the parks and talk ininteresting accents half the time. We all dare each other to do The Endearing Look: "I'm cute, give me food" on the most unlikely people. Jemima, of course, is unbelievably good at this

I still sprint home - I don't see why I should be put off, I'm right back in training - and _of course_ I'm always careful now... and _of course_ I always win. Muahaha. Although I was a little unnerved when Pouncival came within about 10 seconds of me last week...

And I'm even regaining me youthful beauty and stunning good looks; slowly, though I figure not quite as slowly as it would have been without Macavity's paw in the matter. Eh, not that that's exactly bothering me. I wouldn't have cared _what_ looked like - I wouldn't have cared if I looked like Macavity, honestly!

I am actually alive... They always speak of those near-death experiences as something so profound, something that leaves you emotionally scarred and staggering for the rest of your life... Whereas for me... For me it was a mess, really. It was a mess of blood and drugs running down all the cracks in my personality. And now, afterwards, when I'm supposed to reflect on all I've been through, and be still and solemn and careful and avowed to the sanctity of life - well, erm, now I've gone incredibly hyper. Nearly died? Been there, done that, and it's gonna take a lot more'n that to get little ol' Rumpelteazer down! At least in the long run. And at least as long I have someone to hold up my head.

_Love ya, Mungo. Forever._

I'm in love with life. I'm high on oxygen and sunshine and moonshine and fluffy clouds and - Oooh, and sparkly things and strawberries and cream (though I've never eaten any, it always sounds nice.) And I don't exactly laugh in the face of Death like in the stories - it's more like we've got a decent relationship, sorta shaking hands and smiling in the street, but nothing too close or personal (though he's a real creepy fellow, so I'll just keep away mostly). Which probably sounds like a shockingly flippant and _bad_ analogy, but that's just me.

Laugh in the dark. Hehe, at least as long as your lungs are working properly.

And that's just me again, spoiling a wonderful inspirational sentence with some practical ironic junk like that.

I told you I was pathetic at beginnings, right? Well, I think you should ditto that comment for endings too. Or maybe I just don't like 'em. I don't believe in them, I think, that's what it is. Endings are just so.... endy. Like they're ending something. (Give me a prize for coherent thought, why don't you?) Things don't just end, and I'm not about to disappear conveniently as a big metaphorical "THE END" sign sails down from on high. Hehe, no such luck, sorry. I'm sticking around here and living for a bit more, methinks.

Just leave it at: I'm happy. I am madly in love with life and I always want to stay this cheerful and I always want to have Mungo around to bounce off. I'm thankful to be alive.

And just cos I'm jumping up and down hyperly and going "eeeeeeeeeeee!!!!" while I pronounce it to the world doesn't make it any less true.

 

~THE END~

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written in 2002-3. I thought it might be an idea to archive my pre-ao3 fic here in case of accidents :)
> 
> The medical details and entire plot _are_ totally vague and only for plot convenience; there is nothing I'm about to do about that at this point!!


End file.
